Welcome Back You Clown
by rosey12
Summary: Nick is back in the apartment and Jess is so happy she can't stop smiling! But, there's a question playing on her mind and she knows she won't be able to sleep until it's answered...


Jess lay in bed shortly after her little dance sesh in her room after the music had come to an abrupt stop from Winston barging in Nick's room and taking the batteries out of the radio so he could sleep. There was going to be no sleep for Jess tonight, however, with her mind reeling and the fact that she couldn't stop smiling…Nick was back!

But, as she lay there a little longer, after thinking of all the fun things they were all going to be able to do together again…more True American, touch football (with no injuries hopefully), and maybe even some butt shaking contests with Nick, she started wondering why Nick was back? Did something happen with him and Caroline, did she make him leave after he freaked on out on her spent the night in the desert? Or did Nick make this decision on his own? And why, after her little speech to him about her telling him she was okay with him going to Caroline's and that he should do what makes him happy, did he change his mind? What was going through Nick Miller's head? She needed to know, for reasons clueless to her (but not completely clueless), what made him come back. And, she needed to know now, because there was no other way she was going to be getting any sleep until she had everything figured out and her mind could breathe a little and stop over-analyzing everything.

So, she figured the best way to get to the bottom of it, was to go talk to the man himself, and go wake him up. Jess crawled out of bed and scurried across her room to open her door and cross the hall to Nick's. She suddenly felt really weird and nervous about going to talk to Nick about the whole situation, and thinking she was just going to go and lay and bed and maybe Schmidt or Winston would ask Nick in the morning, when she saw the light coming from under Nick's door. It suddenly dawned on her that Nick didn't have anything in his room, much less a bed or pillow to sleep on, so he probably wouldn't be sleeping either. Jess slowly tip-toed back to her room and grabbed all of her blankets and comforters off her bed, along with one of her pillows, and dragged them back to Nick's door. So maybe she wouldn't talk to Nick tonight about why he came back, but at least she could be a good roommate/friend and give the guy something so he could try and sleep!

As Jess was crossing the hall, her legs got wrapped up in one of the blankets. The next thing she knew, she was flailing across the hall, hitting her shoulder hard into Nick's door and banging her knee on the ground as she fell. She had barely hit the ground when the door came swinging open as Nick came flying out.

"Jess, are you okay? I thought I heard someone walking around out here…what were you trying to do with all this stuff?" as he helped her up, and started picking up all the blankets off the ground and looking at Jess for an answer.

"Well, I couldn't sleep, and I figured that you probably couldn't either since all of your stuff is out in the truck, so I thought I'd bring you some of my stuff?" she could barely look him in the face without blushing from embarrassment as she handed him the pillow she was still clinging on to.

"Thanks, but are you sure you are okay?" Nick said as he grabbed the pillow from Jess. "That sounded like it really hurt when you hit the door."

"My shoulder hurts a little bit, but I'll live…don't you worry Nicholas!" Jess said, trying out her Donald Duck voice once again.

Nick just rolled his eyes and a small smirk played across his face.

"Okay good." There was a slight pause and Jess was just turning to go back to her room when Nick quickly, but gently grabbed her arm. "Wait, if you can't sleep, and I can't sleep, why don't you join me? I actually found some old batteries in my closet that I must've forgot here, so we can just sit and listen to some music until we feel like we can sleep?"

Jess finally made complete eye contact with Nick for the first time since she came crashing down, and all she could see were sad, pleading, old pooh eyes that always seemed to sear right through her whenever they shared these little staring matches every so often. They really worked her up a little bit and she felt nervous again. But she also felt bad for Nick and everything that he had went through in the last 24 hours or so, and she could tell he really didn't want to be alone.

"Sure, but I get to pick the station we listen to, and I'm not sitting on your hardwood floors, so help me put down some blankets."

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he came closer to help Jess pick up the rest of the blankets and lay them all down on the floor. Surprisingly, it actually looked really comfy when they had them all laid down, and Jess decided to just plop herself right on top and tried to make a blanket angel in the middle of it all. Nick rolled his eyes once again, with the same little smirk playing across his face, as he went and put the batteries into the radio and turned the volume down low, as to not wake up any of the other roomies, especially Winston.

"Alright Jess, the radio is all yours, pick something good, preferably something with words or at least a song I can bob my head to."

This time it was Jess rolling her eyes, as Nick brought out the air guitar for the second time that night, unbeknownst to Jess, and started to bob his head up in down as he played. She crawled over to the radio as Nick took his seat on the blankets, and a minute later there was a light, bluesy- jazz song ringing through the speakers. This was the sort of music Jess absolutely loved, and when she turned to see Nick's reaction to it, all he did was sit there and look at her with his turtle face, but surprisingly, he didn't say a word. So, she left it on, and crawled back over to her spot on the blankets.

They sat there talking for a little while, mainly about mundane things, like what the weather was going to be like for the weekend, or how they were going to get Neil, their creepy "roommate, " along with his creepy cardboard box containing who knows what, out of the apartment. Jess was really enjoying herself, and she could tell Nick was too. The sadness she had seen in his eyes earlier, it was still there, but there was some more light peaking through them than there had been before, especially when he'd laugh at one of Jess' suggestions about how to get rid of Neil. "I could just go in there and sing show tunes in his ear all day long! That would totally work with one of you guys!"

"Yeah, we would have been out of here in a second had you started doing that too much, but Neil had called himself a singing 'troubador' I believe, so he might actually enjoy that." Nick said cringing as he thought about how life would be if Jess really did sing show tunes all day long. He could put up with her occasional outburst of song or the humming and singing she often did when she was baking or correcting papers. He actually liked hearing Jess' real singing voice and wish she would sing normal more often. She had a beautiful voice, but he would never tell her that…

"I could walk in his room naked, that seems to scare SOME people" Nick chimed in, clearing his voice for an added emphasis on the word some.

"Hey, I maybe I should be the one to do it, it seemed to scare Amanda right outta your life!"

"Jess, we would NEVER get him to leave if you did that…trust me" Nick was looking at her again, that way he did sometimes when it was just the two of them, and Jess felt a blush creep up her neck and face as she tore her gaze away from his eyes. She definitely wanted to change the subject, because this one was making her embarrassed once again, and maybe even a little twirly, talking about all this nakedness.

There was a long pause after Nick's comment, both of them trying to think of things to say to cover up the awkwardness that was now hanging between them, because neither one could look the other in the eye. Jess' mind was trying to think of anything at this point, when her brain and mouth unconsciously spat out…

"Nick, why did you come back?"


End file.
